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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196569">stolen things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons'>Origamidragons</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Things, During Canon, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, POV Minor Character, Post-Alabasta, Post-Canon, theft as a love language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:22:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A catalogue of things stolen by, for, and from Princess Vivi of Alabasta with regards to a certain thief, as documented by her long-suffering captain of the guard.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nami/Nefertari Vivi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stolen things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(1. a necklace)</strong>
</p>
<p>It starts small, comparatively speaking; a month or so after the rain returns to Alabasta and the country’s pain is soothed at last, there’s a little package of folded cardboard addressed to Princess Vivi buried in amongst the palace’s morning mail. This, in and of itself, isn’t terribly unusual. The princess has taken on a significant portion of the country’s day-to-day administration since her return while her father recovers, and she has many friends and contacts across the country she’s been corresponding with to aid in the rebuilding.</p>
<p>What is unusual, though, is the <em>way</em> it’s addressed. Ordinarily, missives to the princess will be addressed to <em>Her Grace, Princess Nefertari Vivi</em>, stamped in formal black ink on clean white paper and packaging. This one, though, just says <em>Vivi</em>, written in a exceedingly neat hand with nonetheless a few trembles in the lettering, as though the writer had been, perhaps, aboard a boat when penning it.</p>
<p>There’s no return address or sender name- instead, a pinwheel of four thick spiralling lines with a small circle attached to the uppermost swirl has been drawn where one would normally be.</p>
<p>Pell frowns, and breaks the seal on the back of the package. One of the many duties he’s resumed since returning to work (a feat that had required shouting down Chaka, the princess, <em>and</em> the king when they’d tried to insist he remain bedbound) is checking the mail, after all. And he’s been especially vigilant about the princess’s safety.</p>
<p>After everything she’s been through in the past months and years, from her infiltration of Baroque Works to the inevitable nightmare of the civil war to the slow and arduous reconstruction of a devastated country, he can’t think of anyone who more deserves to rest easy at night.</p>
<p>He opens the little package with due caution, and tips its contents out onto the table. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s not the shimmer of gold that spills out onto the dark wood. It’s a necklace. A pendant shaped like a compass rose hangs from a thin golden chain, with what looks suspiciously like a diamond set at its center.</p>
<p>Well. Unusual, perhaps, and <em>definitely</em> expensive, even Pell’s untrained eye can discern that much, but certainly not dangerous. He carefully replaces it in the package and makes his way up to the princess’s rooms, knocking on the doorframe.</p>
<p>(It had become common knowledge around the palace after the first week or so that it was unwise to surprise the princess. She had developed a newfound tendency to stash those tiny daggers of hers in the sleeves of her dresses.)</p>
<p>“Come in,” a slightly distracted voice calls, and so he slips inside. Vivi is bent over her desk, where she always seems to be these days, brow furrowed in thought, worrying the end of her fountain pen between her teeth. She glances up when he enters, and he can’t help but worry, just a little, at how tired she looks.</p>
<p>She’s taken a lot onto her shoulders. He always seems to find her at her desk these days, if she’s not in the council rooms or talking to the citizens or poring over the newspapers or-</p>
<p>“Pell,” she says, smiling slightly. “What is it?”</p>
<p>“Ah.” It takes him a moment to remember why he’s here. “This was sent for you today,” he says, crossing the room to hand her the small package.</p>
<p>She frowns slightly, confused, as she takes it- and then he can see the moment her eyes catch on the little symbol drawn in the corner, that odd pinwheel shape, because she <em>lights up</em>, a smile immediately spreading across her face and brightening her eyes like he hasn’t seen in weeks. She tears into the package like a birthday present, and in seconds the necklace is cupped in her hands, gleaming under the light of her desk lamp.</p>
<p>She swallows hard, and for a moment her face scrunches into a look Pell knows well. Ever since she was a child, she’s always made the same face when struggling not to cry. It’s only a moment, though, and then it passes, leaving her with just a wide smile and shining eyes. She nearly drops the necklace in her fumbling haste to fasten it around her neck.</p>
<p>The compass pendant falls perfectly into place on her chest, the gold bright against desert-dark skin, and she smiles down at it with a softness that makes Pell abruptly feel like he’s intruding on something personal.</p>
<p>“Pell,” she says, and he straightens to attention automatically, “bring all future packages with that symbol on them directly to me, if you don’t mind. No need to check through them.”</p>
<p>“Princess-” he starts to object, but thinks better of it when she shoots him a <em>look</em> that makes him automatically swallow back his protest on behalf of her safety. “...As you say,” he concedes.</p>
<p>She’s always had grit and iron in her, ever since she was young and scrapping with Kohza amidst the sand dunes, but her two years away have tempered her into a pirate in truth, a sharp-eyed young woman who digs her fingernails into everything she treasures and won’t let go no matter how it hurts.</p>
<p>But then, it was pirates who saved Alabasta. Maybe that’s the kind of princess they need.</p>
<p>He turns, and is half out the door when he can’t help but ask, “It’s from them, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t need to specify who. Vivi doesn’t confirm aloud, but when he glances back over his shoulder she’s looking at the wanted posters pinned to her wall with an aching sort of look on her face, and that’s answer enough.</p>
<p>When the next package marked with the same symbol and addressed in the same neat handwriting arrives a month later, he takes it straight to her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>(2. a newspaper)</strong>
</p>
<p>The sun is rising over Alabasta as the king and princess break their fast. Pell tosses the morning newspaper to the table, and no sooner has it hit the wood that Vivi is snatching it up with all the desperation of a marooned sailor grabbing for a thrown lifeline, nearly tearing through the paper in her urgency.</p>
<p>Pell can’t say he’s surprised by the response, because the front page headline reads <strong>STRAWHAT PIRATES LEVEL ENIES LOBBY</strong>, printed in striking bold lettering above a photo of a grinning boy wearing a straw hat with all the confidence of a king’s crown. Vivi rips the paper open and a sheaf of wanted posters fall out of the centerfold, scattering onto the table.</p>
<p>There’s at least one face among them that Pell doesn’t recognize, and one that he definitely <em>does</em> recognize (<em>clutch-</em>) but certainly hadn’t expected to see grouped among the <em>Strawhats</em>, but neither is the poster that Vivi’s focus falls on first.</p>
<p>Instead, the Princess’s gaze is drawn to one of the lowest bounties of the lot, an dark-eyed woman giving the camera a playful smile over her shoulder, hands tangled in her orange hair and a familiar spiralling symbol emblazoned in deep blue ink on her shoulderblade. <em>Cat Burglar Nami</em>, the poster reads. <em>Wanted Dead or Alive</em>.</p>
<p>Vivi reaches out and brushes fingers against the paper for just a moment, a complicated sort of look on her face that Pell couldn’t begin to put a name to, and he sees her lips move in a whisper of a name. Then all of a sudden she seems to remember she’s not alone, and hastily snatches up the sheaf of wanted posters together with the newspaper and clutches them to her chest like they’re infinitely more precious than mere ink and paper.</p>
<p>“I’ll- be right back,” she says, the words rushed, and then she’s gone from the room before the king can do more than send a slightly befuddled look after her.</p>
<p>Pell sighs, more fondly than anything, and goes to find another newspaper for the king. He has a feeling they won’t be getting that one back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>(3. a kiss)</strong>
</p>
<p>It’s four months after the Whitebeard War, four months since any word of the Strawhat Pirates has reached Alabasta, and four months of Princess Vivi staring out the windows of the palace and clenching her fists so hard her knuckles go white, when Pell realizes there is an intruder in the palace.</p>
<p>Whoever they are, they are very good. It’s not a broken window that alerts him to their presence, or a scream- nothing so blatant and clumsy. Instead, it’s a faint footprint, left in the thin dusting of sand on the railing of one of the third-floor balconies, just barely visible in the fading light of the setting sun. If not for the inhuman eyesight his devil fruit grants him, he surely would have missed it completely.</p>
<p>The princess’s rooms are nearby, and his heart crawls into his throat. He’s not an idiot. He knows the princess has enemies. He’s seen her slipping out under cover of night to negotiate with pirates and smugglers, words sharp and spine unbending.</p>
<p>(There are times when Pell wishes, for the sake of his peace of mind, that she was just a little <em>less</em> fearless.)</p>
<p>He slips down the hallway silently. There’s light shining from under the princess’s door, and muffled noises from inside the room. He rests one hand on the hilt of his sword, eases the door silently open with his other hand.</p>
<p>It takes him a moment to register what he’s seeing, it’s so far off from what he’d half-feared he’d find.</p>
<p>The princess is pressed against a wall by a woman with orange hair and tan skin who Pell recognizes immediately from the wanted poster on the wall as Cat Burglar Nami. Vivi has her legs up around Nami’s waist and her hands buried in her hair, and she’s kissing her like it’s the end of the world, even as tears run down her cheeks and her shoulders shake.</p>
<p>There’s words murmured between them, too quiet to make out, blurred by voices thick from crying. He hears <em>war</em>, and <em>lost</em>, and<em> should have been there</em>, broken up by kisses and sobs, and he wonders just how much weight his princess has been truly carrying on her shoulders these past months.</p>
<p>Pell takes a step back and noiselessly slips the door closed again, to give them their privacy.</p>
<p>Well. At least she’s not in any danger. He’s going to have to tell the king he really, <em>really</em> shouldn’t get his hopes up about those marriage prospects.</p>
<p>The pirate haunts the palace for another week and a half, and Pell can’t help but be reluctantly impressed by her elusiveness. Her presence only shows in how Vivi’s started to always keep the door to her room tightly closed, in silent footprints on the balcony and the low hum of nighttime murmurings, and in the smile the princess can’t seem to drop.</p>
<p>He has to grab her by the shoulder one morning before she heads into the council chambers and advise, in a quiet voice that can’t help but be long-suffering, that she apply some makeup to the blossoming bruises on her neck.</p>
<p>And then Nami is gone again, like a sea breeze, like she was never there, like pirates are wont to do. A pair of Vivi’s favorite earrings disappears with her. The princess doesn’t cry, at least nowhere that Pell can see. She still wears the golden compass necklace every day, bright against her chest, close to her heart, and he thinks he understands, now.</p>
<p>He’d thought the necklace present from the Strawhat Pirates at large at first, but it isn’t that. It’s a memento from a lover, from a cartographer- a compass pointing ever north. <em>Someday, no matter what, find your way back to me</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>(4. a heart)</strong>
</p>
<p>It doesn’t exactly take a falcon’s eyesight to see that Princess Vivi’s heart doesn’t belong to Alabasta anymore. Or, at least, not wholly to Alabasta. There will always be a part of their princess buried in the golden sands and fed on the oasis waters, and Pell knows that’s why she’s still there with them, and not far away on an unknown ocean with salt in her hair and a rolling deck beneath her feet.</p>
<p>But there’s something about the ocean, about the sea winds and the endless horizon and the boundless freedom it brings, that <em>takes</em>. Pell has known a lot of sailors, and they’ve all had the same look on their eyes that Princess Vivi bears all the time now- always looking, searching for the waves, for the horizon, for the next adventure.</p>
<p>He feels for her. He has always belonged, heart and soul, to Alabasta, and someday he will be buried in its sands. There will never be any other home for him. The princess, though, is torn in two, between two homes and two loves and she can never have one without leaving the other, and that’s a cruel fate, for someone who deserves nothing but kindness after all she’s been through.</p>
<p>It’s one of the reasons he always has to bite his tongue when the king takes it into his head to push the concept of marriage again, floating the names of thoroughly-vetted suitors, even as Princess Vivi gently shuts him down cold. The princess’s heart will go to no respectable young man, that’s clear as day. It’s already been stolen.</p>
<p>That’s what pirates do, after all. They <em>take</em>, just like the ocean they live and die by.</p>
<p>The cat burglar could have asked for any riches Alabasta had left, and the king would have probably honored her request, even gutted as their country was by drought and famine and war. But instead she fled with their princess’s heart in her hands, one treasure that could never be replaced.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>(5. a princess)</strong>
</p>
<p>It’s a dazzlingly bright desert morning in Alubarna when the Pirate King’s navigator arrives at the palace.</p>
<p>There’s no sneaking this time, no scaling walls and vaulting balconies under the cover of darkness. Nami walks right up the sun-bleached stone stairs, all tanned skin and lean muscle, bold as brass for a wanted pirate with hundreds of millions of beri on her head, and Pell doesn’t make a single move to stop her. The tattoo on her shoulder reminds him of a little cardboard package, sent and delivered years ago.</p>
<p>The princess meets her at the doors with a packed bag already on her shoulders, crashing into her arms without even a shred of royal dignity, and Nami doesn’t waste a second before sweeping her up into her arms and into a hungry kiss, like it doesn’t matter in the slightest that there’s dozens of eyes on them, the everyday traffic of guards and politicians and citizens through the palace stopped dead in its tracks.</p>
<p>Maybe it doesn’t, for pirates. Maybe pirates only know how to love like they could be dead tomorrow.</p>
<p>A few of the guards are shooting him confused and somewhat panicked looks; Pell just shakes his head and signals <em>at ease</em>. In all honestly, he’s almost surprised this didn’t happen sooner- but then, Vivi has always been loyal to her country to the point of martyrdom, and it’s only in the past year or so that all the tireless work she has put in to build the country up has finally blossomed to a point where her constant presence is no longer necessary.</p>
<p>The country is safe, and healthy, and at peace, after countless days and nights of fighting with steel and ink to make it so. She can rest now, at least for a time, and she deserves nothing less. He knows the bag on her shoulders now has been ready in her room for weeks.</p>
<p>Nami and Vivi finally break apart for breath, and Nami rests her forehead against the princess’s, grinning like she can’t stop. “Ready to go?” she asks. “Everyone else is waiting with the Sunny at the river port.”</p>
<p>Vivi casts a glance over to Pell, silently questioning, and he bites back a chuckle. “Go on, then, your majesty,” he says, waving a hand, and can’t help but add, to Nami, “At least you had the decency to come to the front door this time, instead of climbing in the window.”</p>
<p>The blushes that decorate both their faces at that are more brilliant red than any desert sunburn he’s ever seen, and then he <em>does</em> have to laugh in truth. And then Vivi is burying her red face in her hands and <em>wheezing</em> with laughter, and the look that Nami gives her is so impossibly soft that Pell feels comforted about his princess’s safety then and there, no words needed.</p>
<p>Once Vivi can meet his eyes again, he smiles, and just says, “Be safe.”</p>
<p>“I will,” she promises, and there’s freedom in her voice.</p>
<p>No one moves a finger to stop them as the laughing thief flees down the front steps of the palace, a stolen princess beaming to outshine the desert sun in her arms.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>listen, we don't know nami <i>didn't</i> sneak back to alabasta to visit vivi at some point during the timeskip.</p>
<p>anyways, this was really fun to write... i love them. </p>
<p>(i'm on tumblr @<a href="https://oriigami.tumblr.com/">oriigami</a>, feel free to come chat!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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